


now we find the strength to stand alone

by unrulyangels



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrulyangels/pseuds/unrulyangels
Summary: Gina does not take E.J. up on his offer of a ride to Denny's. She does not cancel her flight out of Salt Lake City either. She cannot pull her "Disappearing Gina" act on her mother, after all; or just pretend that her problems do not exist; or break her own heart like that.
Relationships: Ashlyn Caswell & E.J. Caswell & Gina Porter, Big Red & Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen & Gina Porter
Comments: 28
Kudos: 119





	now we find the strength to stand alone

**Author's Note:**

> Look--I just think that Gina's the bee's knees, okay?
> 
> (Title from Birdy's "Growing Pains.")

Gina does not take E.J. up on his offer of a ride to Denny's. She does not cancel her flight out of Salt Lake City either. She cannot pull her "Disappearing Gina" act on her mother, after all; or just pretend that her problems do not exist; or break her own heart like that.

But Ashlyn must have registered the resignation on her face, even after Gina'd tried to mask it with feigned enthusiasm, because the first thing that Gina's mother says to her at the airport--after the tired "Hi, baby. How was the flight?"--is "I just had the most interesting phone call, Gi."

#

She moves into the Caswell's guest room the next week. It is the best time to do so: it is winter break and so Gina does not have to worry about school and, because she has the entire week off for Christmas, her mother does not have to worry about work either.

"You're sure you want to do this?" her mother asks, as she folds sweaters. She does not look at Gina.

Gina supposes that she must be aggravating her mother, by not being brave or strong enough to say goodbye to East High, but she says, "Yes, I want this, I want to do this," anyway, her white-knuckled fingers twisted into fists at her sides.

"Okay," her mother says. She sighs. Then she finally--finally--looks up at Gina, and Gina sees that her eyes are wet and shiny as stars and, oh. Oh.

#

("My family is just me and my mom," she had said to Ricky in his car after Homecoming.

She has made the right choice, she thinks, and she is working on expanding her definition of family, but change--

Change is still change.

She cries every night for a week, in the space between Mrs. Caswell's hugging her goodnight and waking.)

#

"You're much more of a bummer than I would have expected," E.J. says, sprawled across Gina's bed, an apple in one hand.

Ashlyn, sat at the foot of the bed next to Gina, throws the pilfered ball of yarn in her own left hand at E.J.'s face. "She's hundreds of miles away from her only family for the first time ever, asshole." She scowls at E.J. in a mildly threatening way. "Like you won't be just as heartbroken next fall."

"Thousands of miles," Gina mutters, but her words are swallowed up by E.J.'s affirming that he is not ashamed to admit that he'll probably cry when his parents leave him at Brown or Columbia or wherever because he is totally in touch with his feminine side, thank you very much, Ashlyn, and Ashlyn's snickering.

Thousands, she thinks again, as Ashlyn tackles E.J. and he spits a stream of apple seeds into her hair. It does not feel half as lonely as she had thought it would.

She does not cry that night. Or any night after it.

#

E.J. is not what she had thought him to be either.

For starters, it is clear to Gina, even if it is not clear to E.J. himself or to Ashlyn, that Ashlyn is his favourite person in the entire world and Gina has been to enough high schools to know that that--the water polo captain's favourite person in the entire world being the High Priestess of the local Ren Faire--is incredibly unusual. But he is over at Ashlyn's all break long, lying on the couch in the living room, or on Ashlyn's bed, or on Gina's bed, and he is charming and funny, if not particularly self-aware, and he is nice to Ashlyn. Nice to Gina, even. Nice enough that it makes sense to Gina, finally, why someone as perfect as Nini would have gone out with him once.

"I'm sorry about the drink," Gina says, when they are watching bits of _The Great Festive Bake-Off_ together, Ashlyn making popcorn in the kitchen. "At Homecoming, I mean," she says, when E.J. wrinkles his nose. "And I'm sorry about Homecoming itself. It was your last one: I shouldn't have ruined it for you like that."

E.J. does not say anything for awhile, silent as Jamie-Lee O'Donnell makes a wonky Amelia Earhart out of fondant, and Gina wonders if he is just not going to say anything when he sighs. "It was your first one, right? I shouldn't have ruined it for you either."

Gina pats the shoulder that is nearest to her. "You've more than made up for it," she says, as Ashlyn strides out of the kitchen with a large bowl in hand.

Ashlyn settles in the space between E.J. and Gina, shoving E.J. aside to make room for herself. "Do not seduce my new roommate," she says to her cousin pointedly, offering Gina the bowl, as Dylan Llewellyn adds wheels to his lopsided camper van cake.

#

(Gina tries her very best to not think about Ricky, whose father has taken him to Chicago to visit his mother.

He was not hers to lose, not ever, not really, but she still feels a strange sense of loss: one that makes her breath hitch and the backs of her eyes burn.

She is staying in Utah, and Ricky will eventually leave Illinois for it, too, but he is hazy to her in a way that he had not been before.

She terms it the "Disappearing Ricky" act, as she reads sections of _Sense and Sensibility_ for English one night. It stings worse, somehow, than having to perform the "Disappearing Gina" ever did.)

#

Seeing Big Red makes forgetting that Ricky exists a little harder until it does not, because Big Red is also his own person--and a fantastic person at that.

"You're staying in Salt Lake City, then?" he asks, the first time he comes over to Ashlyn's and sees E.J. and Gina baking cookies in her kitchen, E.J. in his aunt's pink _Kiss the Cook!_ apron and Gina with flour on her cheeks.

"Yes."

"Have you told--"

"No." A beat. "I haven't spoken to him in weeks. He'll find out in a couple of days, I guess, with Nini and Ms. Jenn and Carlos and everyone else." Gina shrugs, as though it does not matter to her in the least.

"He'll be thrilled," Big Red says, and so matter-of-factly that Gina nearly believes him. (It is not only that Ricky is now--as always--Nini's Ricky. It is that Gina has often worried that she makes less of an impact on other people than they make on her.)

"He'll be thrilled," Big Red repeats, as if reading Gina's mind. "And I'm thrilled, too, you know. You're, like, the second coolest girl I know."

Gina laughs, as E.J. makes a retching sound and Ashlyn blushes. "You're pretty cool yourself, Big Red," she says, offering him a taste of the dough.

#

"I can't believe you're the only one of us with a boyfriend, Ash," E.J. says one night after Big Red has gone home and E.J. himself is yanking his sneakers on.

"I had no idea you wanted one," Ashlyn laughs. "I'll ask Carlos and Seb to keep an eye out for you."

"Oh, shut up," E.J. grumbles, as Gina giggles, too. "You know that's not what I meant." He prods at his shoelaces; then looks up at his cousin. "What does Ricky have that I don't, Ash? What does Nini see in him that she doesn't see in me?" He looks, strangely enough, near tears. "What about you?" he says to Gina, when Ashlyn is silent. "What do you see in him?"

Gina starts. She had not expected him to turn on her, and she feels the bridge of her own nose begin, embarrassingly enough, to itch. "What do you see in Nini?" she counters, surprising both E.J. and herself.

He starts to speak, but stops, abruptly, when Ashlyn grabs a hold of his jaw with one hand and a hold of Gina's with the other. "I just want to tell you," she says, in an improbable Russian accent, "that [some people have war in their countries](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfeG7clR7VA)."

#

"Family movie night before school starts?" E.J. asks, as he works on a pair of olive-green gloves. " _Parasite_ is still on at the Cinemark on Highland."

"Sure," Ashlyn says, frowning at the misshapen orange scarf in front of her. "Why is it that your hat actually looks like a hat, when my scarf looks like a rabbit?" she asks Gina, as Gina works on an ear flap.

"Practice," Gina says. She does not look up until E.J. pokes her in the side with a knitting needle.

"Earth to Gina," he says, as she winces. "Are you in for _Parasite_ tonight, or not?"

#

"Thousands," she mutters, as she walks into East High on Monday, with E.J.'s arm slung around her shoulders and some of Ashlyn's butterfly-shaped barrettes in her hair.

E.J. has only just pushed the door open when Gina hears Carlos gasp and feels Seb fling his arms around her. "Gina!" Seb shouts, shaking her so hard she nearly knocks both Ashlyn and E.J. over. "You're staying in Salt Lake City?"

"She's staying in Salt Lake City," Ashlyn confirms, to cheers from Carlos and Kourtney and Natalie and a winking Big Red, who have all materialised at Gina's side, as though summoned by Seb's yelling.

"Told you," Big Red whispers, and Gina half-laughs and half-sobs, overwhelmed, until she realises that he is gesturing at Nini and Ricky, who are both stood at the end of the hallway. Nini's brow is furrowed in bewilderment, but Ricky--Ricky is gaping at the barrettes, at E.J.'s arm around her shoulders, at the lines of her face. And then he is looking at Gina, really looking at her, and he is smiling so widely that she thinks that he could put the sun out of business.

Thousands of miles, but Gina does not feel lonely at all.

**Author's Note:**

> ♡


End file.
